Winsor, Kathleen (4 page)

"Where's
Heathstone from here?"

"Heathstone
be damned!" protested one of the men. "What's wrong with your own
ordinary? I'll fall off this jade if I go another mile without food!" He
was a handsome blond red-faced young man and in spite of his scowl he was
obviously happy and good-natured. As he spoke the others laughed and one of
them leaned over to clap him on the shoulder.

"By
God, we're a set of rascals! Almsbury hasn't had a mouthful since he ate that
side of mutton this morning!"

They
laughed again at this for apparently Almsbury's
appetite was a well-established
joke among them. The girls giggled too, more at ease now, and the six-year-old
who had mistaken them for Puritan ghosts came out boldly from behind Lisbeth's
skirts and edged a step or two nearer. At that instant something happened to
create an abrupt change in the relationship between the men and girls.

"There's
nothing wrong with our inn, your Lordship!" cried a low-pitched feminine
voice, and the girl who had been talking to the two young farmers came running
across the green toward them. The girls had stiffened like wary cats but the
men looked about with surprise and sudden interest. "The hostess there
brews the finest ale in Essex!"

She
made a quick little curtsy to Almsbury and then her eyes turned to meet those
of the man who had spoken first and who was now watching her with a new
expression on his face, speculative, admiring, alert. While the others watched,
it seemed that time stopped for a moment and then, reluctantly, went on again.

Amber
St. Clare raised her arm and pointed back down the street to the great sign with
its weather-beaten gilt lion shimmering faintly as the falling sun struck it.
"Next the blacksmith's shop, m'lord."

Her
honey-coloured hair fell in heavy waves below her shoulders and as she stared
up at him her eyes, clear, speckled amber, seemed to tilt at the corners; her
brows were black and swept up in arcs, and she had thick black lashes. There
was about her a kind of warm luxuriance, something immediately suggestive to
the men of pleasurable fulfillment—something for which she was not responsible
but of which she was acutely conscious. It was that, more than her beauty,
which the other girls resented.

She
was dressed, very much as they were, in a rust wool skirt tucked up over a
green petticoat, a white blouse and yellow apron and tight-laced black
stomacher; her ankles were bare and she wore a pair of neat black shoes. And
yet she was no more like them than a field flower is like a cultivated one or a
sparrow is like a golden pheasant.

Almsbury
leaned forward, crossing his arms on his saddle bow. "What in the name of
Jesus," he said slowly, "are
you
doing out here in God's
forgotten country?"

The
girl looked at him, dragging her eyes away from the other man, and now she
smiled, showing teeth that were white and even and beautifully shaped. "I
live here, m'lord."

"The
deuce you do! Then how the devil did you get here? What are you? Some
nobleman's bastard put out to suck with a cottager's wife and forgotten these
fifteen years?" It was no uncommon occurrence, but she looked suddenly
angry, her brows drawing in an indignant scowl.

"I
am
not,
sir! I'm as much my father's child as you are— or more!"

The
men, including Almsbury, laughed heartily at this and
her gave her a
grin. "No offense, sweetheart. Lord, I only meant you haven't the look of
a farmer's daughter."

She
smiled at him quickly then, as though in apology for her show of temper, but
her eyes went back immediately to the other man. He was still watching her with
a look that warmed all her body and brought a swift-rising sense of excitement.
The men were wheeling their horses around and as his turned, its forelegs
lifted high, he smiled and nodded his head. Almsbury thanked her and lifted his
hat and then they rode off, clattering back up the street to the inn. For a
moment longer the girls stood silently, watching them dismount and go through
the doorway while the inn-keeper's young sons came to take care of their
horses.

When
they were out of sight Lisbeth suddenly stuck out her tongue and gave Amber a
shove. "There!" she cried triumphantly, and made a sound like a
bleating female goat. "Much good it did you, Mrs. Minx!"

Swiftly
Amber returned the shove, almost knocking the girl off balance, crying,
"Mind your knitting, chatterbox!"

For
a moment they stood and glared at each other, but finally Lisbeth turned and
went off across the green, where the other girls were rounding up their
charges, running and shouting, racing with one another, eager to get home to
their evening suppers. The sun had set, leaving the sky bright red along the
horizon but turning to delicate blue above. Here and there a star had come out;
the air was full of the magic of twilight.

Her
heart still beating heavily, Amber crossed back to where she had left her
basket lying in the grass. The two young farmers had gone, and now she picked
it up again and continued on her way, walking toward the inn.

She
had never seen anyone like him before in her life. The clothes he wore, the
sound of his voice, the expression in his eyes, all made her feel that she had
had a momentary glimpse into another world—and she longed passionately to see
it again, if only for a brief while. Everything else, her own world of
Marygreen and Uncle Matt's farm, all the young men she knew, now seemed to her
intolerably dull, even contemptible.

From
her conversations with the village cobbler she knew that they must be noblemen,
but what they were doing here, in Marygreen, she could not imagine. For the
Cavaliers these past several years had retired into what obscurity they could
find or had gone abroad in the wake of the King's son, now Charles II, who
lived in exile.

The
cobbler, who had fought in the Civil Wars on his Majesty's side, had told her a
great many tales of things he had seen and stories he had heard. He had told
her of seeing Charles I at Oxford, of being almost close enough to have touched
him, of the gay and beautiful Royalist ladies, the gallant men—it was a life
full of colour and spirit and high romance. But she had seen nothing of it, for
it disappeared while she was yet a child, disappeared forever the morning
his Majesty was
beheaded in the yard of his own Palace. It was something of that atmosphere
which the dark-haired stranger had brought with him—not the others, for she had
scarcely noticed them—but it was something more as well, something intensely
personal. It seemed as though, all at once, she was fully and completely alive.

Arriving
at the inn she did not go in by the front entrance but, instead, walked around
to the back where a little boy sat in the doorway, playing with his fox-eared
puppy, and she patted him on the head as she went by. In the kitchen Mrs.
Poterell was rushing about in a frenzy of preparation, excited and distraught.
On the chopping-block lay a piece of raw beef into which one of the daughters
was stuffing a moist mixture of bread-crumbs and onions and herbs. A little
girl was cranking up water from the well that stood far in one corner of the
kitchen. And the turnspit-dog in his cage above the fireplace gave an angry
yowl as another boy applied a hot coal to his hind feet to make him move faster
and turn the roasting-joint so it would brown evenly on all sides.

Amber
managed to catch the attention of Mrs. Poterell, who was careening from one
side of the room to the other, her apron full of eggs. "Here's a Dutch
gingerbread Aunt Sarah sent you, Mrs. Poterell!" It was not true, for
Sarah had sent the delicacy to the blacksmith's wife, but Amber thought this
the better cause.

"Oh,
thank God, sweetheart! Oh, I never was in such a taking! Six gentlemen in my
house at once! Oh, Lord! What shall I do!" But even as she talked she had
begun breaking the eggs into a great bowl.

At
that moment fifteen-year-old Meg emerged from the trapdoor which led down into
the cellar, her arms full of dusty green bottles, and Amber rushed to her.

"Here,
Meg! Let me help you!"

She
took five of them from her and started for the other room, pushing the door
open with her knee, but she kept her eyes down as she entered, and concentrated
all her attention on the bottles. The men were standing about the room, cloaks
off though they still wore their hats, and as she appeared Almsbury caught
sight of her and came forward, smiling.

"Here—sweetheart.
Let me help you with those. So they play that old game out here too?"

"What
old game, m'lord?"

He
took three of the bottles from her and she set the other two on the table,
looking up then to smile at him. But instantly her eyes sought out the other
man where he stood next the windows with two companions, throwing dice on a
table-top. His back was half turned and he did not glance around but tossed
down a coin as one of the others snapped his fingers at a lucky throw.
Surprised and disappointed, for she had expected him to see her
immediately—even to be looking for her—she turned again to Almsbury.

"Why,
it's the oldest game in the world," he was saying. "Keeping a pretty
bar-maid to lure in the customers till they've spent their last shilling—-I'll
warrant you've lured many a farmer's son to his ruin." He was grinning at
her and now he picked up a bottle, jerked out the cork and put it to his lips.
Amber gave him another smile, arch and flirtatious, wishing that the other man
would look over and see her.

"Oh,
I'm not the bar-maid here, sir. I brought Mrs. Poterell a cake and helped Meg
to carry in the bottles."

Almsbury
had taken several swallows, draining half the bottle at once. "Ah, by
God!" he declared appreciatively. "Well, then, who are you? What's
your name?"

"Amber
St. Clare, sir."

"Amber!
No farmer's wife ever thought of a name like that."

She
laughed, her eyes stealing swiftly across the room and back again, but he was
still intent on the dice. "That's what my Uncle Matt says. He says my name
should be Mary or Anne or Elizabeth."

Almsbury
took several more deep swallows and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Your uncle's a man of no imagination." And then, as she glanced
toward the table again, he threw back his head and laughed. "So that's
what you want, is it? Well, come along—" And taking hold of her wrist he
started across the room.

"Carlton,"
he said, when they had come up to the group, "here's a wench who has a
mind to lay with you."

He
turned then, gave Almsbury a glance that suggested some joke between them, and
smiled at Amber. She was staring up at him with her eyes big and shining, and had
not even heard the remark. She was no more than five-feet three, a height
convenient for making even a moderate-sized man feel impressive, but he towered
over her by at least a foot.

She
caught only a part of Almsbury's introduction. "—a man for whom I have the
highest regard even though the bastard does steal every pretty wench I set my
eyes on—Bruce, Lord Carlton." She managed to curtsy and he bowed to her,
sweeping off his hat with as much gallantry as though she were a princess
royal. "We're all of us," he continued, "come back with the
King."

"With
the King! Is the King come back!"

"He's
coming—very soon," said Carlton.

At
this astonishing news Amber forgot her nervous embarrassment. For though the
Goodegroomes had once been Parliamentarian in sympathy, they had gradually, as
had most of the country, begun to long for monarchy and the old ways of life.
Since the King's murder his people had grown to love him as they had never done
during his lifetime, and that love had been transferred to his heir.

"Gemini!"
she breathed. For it was too great an event to realize all at once—and under
such distracting conditions.

Lord
Carlton took up one of the bottles which Meg had set
on the table,
wiped the dust from its neck with the palm of his hand, and pulling out the
stopper began to drink. Amber continued to stare at him, her self-consciousness
now almost drowned in awe and admiration.

"We're
on our way to London," he told her. "But one of our horses needs
shoeing. What about your inn? Is it a good place to stay the night? The
landlord won't rob us—there aren't any bed-bugs or lice?" He watched her
face as he talked, and for some reason she did not understand there was a look
of amusement in his eyes.

"Rob
you?" she cried indignantly. "Mr. Poterell never robbed anybody! This
is a mighty fine inn," she declared with staunch loyalty. "The one in
Heathstone is
nothing
to it!"

Both
men were grinning now. "Well," said Almsbury, "let the landlord
steal our shoes and lice be thick as March crows in a fallow field, still it's
an English inn and by God a good one!" With that he made her a solemn bow.
"Your servant, madame," and went off to find another bottle of sack,
leaving them alone.

Amber
felt her bones and muscles turn to water. She stood and looked at him, cursing
herself for her tongue-tied stupor. Why was it that she—who usually had a pert
remark on her tongue for any man no matter what his age or condition— could
think of nothing at all to say now? Now, when she longed with frantic
desperation to impress him, to make him feel the same violent excitement and
admiration that she did. At last she said the only thing she could think of: